At some point I learned the story of how the word kangaroo came to be. In 1770, the British explorer James Cook and a colleague were in Australia when they happened upon a large brown marsupial. They asked a local, “What is that animal?” The local, who spoke the Australian Aboriginal language Guugu Yimithirr, responded “Kangaroo”, meaning “I don’t understand you”, and Cook took that to be the name of the creature. And the rest is history, the silly misunderstanding forever etched into the English language.

At some later point I learned that this story was false. A myth. A fiction. A lie. The fact of the matter is that a Guugu Yimithirr word for the creature is gangurru, and no such misunderstanding took place. In fact, the linguistics community has spent so long disproving this story time and time again that they’re dead tired of disproving it, and they will be very angry with you if you tell this story anywhere without also rejecting it forcefully enough.

What do I make of this? I thought the original story was quite cute, even if it turned out to be bullshit. It’s got a lot of elements which make for a neat story. The clash of cultures, the farcical misunderstanding, the trivia factor (i.e., the hey-did-you-know-that-…). The British explorers come out looking stupid here, which can be flattering to people who don’t like British explorers. It’s a very spreadable story. Maybe that’s why the myth persists to this day.

And what a pity it turned out to be false. Every time I learn that a piece of trivia in my wheelhouse is false, it’s like finding a bad egg in a carton in my refrigerator. I feel like I’ve been cheated out of a fact. But more than the loss of a usable factoid, I bemoan the loss of my ability to point to the phenomenon itself. I’m pretty sure the phenomenon of Alice doesn’t speak Bob’s language so she misunderstands him because she assumes that he is trying to answer her question but he is actually saying “I don’t know” can definitely happen, even if this particular Cook-Australian story is a total fiction. But now I can’t use that example because I’m afraid of spreading misinformation, so how do I illustrate the general phenomenon as vividly?

Can I just present the story as fiction? Like a parable? Maybe I can change some of the details so as to make it my own?

There once was a traveller, Mirri Osaithon by name, who encountered a great reptilian beast while trekking through the jungles of Chunwukwe. She asked a local, Fala, whom she had befriended after a hilarious accident involving a Chunwuk ritual and two jars of peanut butter, “What is the name of that creature?” But neither Mirri nor Fala understood the other’s language. So Fala replied, “Alu khoram bo,” meaning “I don’t understand you.” Later, Mirri would regale the people of her native Besmania with tales of how she slayed the terrible Alukhorambo on her journeys.

Is it worth going through the trouble of making up fake names and places for this story, which is already fake, just so I can illustrate this particular species of linguistic folly without having to worry about linguistics people getting mad at me? But isn’t that already what fiction is? Maybe I can just say, “Hey, here’s some fiction about James Cook in Australia, which many people once believed as fact?”

How much weight does fictional evidence carry?

Luckily for myself, I have a new story. A road sign in Wales bears the following text:

No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only.

Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i’w gyfieithu.

The Welsh portion of the sign actually translates to I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.

This story has been duly fact-checked, and is funny enough that it made the news, so I guess this will have to be good enough.